Page 6 of Taking Root

Chapter Three

After a week of working for the Horntrees, Danny hated the family. She’d stacked up enough experience as a gardener to get used to Daddy’s money attitudes and pinched lips, but Natalie got extra credit for the work she put into her nasty comments. The lady could mock her ripped jeans and need for a new haircut all she liked, and Danny didn’t give a good goddamn. However, wild suppositions about family were off limits, like mentioning in a stage voice how Danny didn’t understand family loyalty. Because apparently folks measured that by who stayed in one place their entire life.

Her hand balled into a fist even as she stood in the shadows of her one-bedroom apartment.

The old scab inside her chest tore open, and she bled. Family loyalty wasn’t possible when her father was on the run from the Feds for murder, lots of it, and WitSec placed Mom in a different city than her, always. She stared at the screen of her phone, willing it to blink bright with a call from her handler. Every night, she waited for the one where they’d caught Kyle Peterson. As if she and Mom could reunite and they could settle in one place for once.

Most of the time, the ache was a dull throb that never went away, but after the stinging shards of the shrapnel dropped earlier, longing would bury her alive. Danny needed to get out of her apartment an hour ago. She hopped up from her bed and began to rifle through her dresser filled with her meager pile of barely folded clothes, sorting through for Saturday evening attire.

Not like she’d be heading to the Gin Mill, even if every cell in her body vibrated at the thought of running into Adrian again. He’d been gorgeous in high school, and he’d gotten even hotter with those chiseled cheekbones, thick brows, and the light sprinkling of scruff. She would’ve never expected the track star she tutored would’ve ended up a doctor, but the passing time turned them into different people.

He’d become a successful community fixture, while she’d become a ghost.

She couldn’t afford to run into him again, because he knew. And if he started announcing Samantha Peterson had returned to town, her handlers would pluck her out of here before she’d even logged a month in this place.

Danny picked up her phone and called Camilla, one of the Horntrees’ personal chefs—also the only one her age who she clicked with. “You free?” she asked. “Let’s hit the town tonight.”

***

Danny’s heart pumped to the bass beat reverberating from Notes Nightclub as she approached. Camilla waited outside the entrance of a brick warehouse, the neon-lit sign and pulsing electronica an indication of what waited for them inside.

Camilla’s red skintight dress dragged stares her way, and her matching red lips made her thick raven hair and tawny skin pop. Danny tugged at the neutral mini dress that came to mid-thigh, the ruched sides and high neckline a mixture of tasteful yet sexy. Either way, she’d be able to move in this thing, and she’d arrived to lose herself in the music.

“After the way Mrs. Horntree’s been raging all week, I need a drink, stat,” Camilla muttered by way of greeting.

Danny nodded, reaching to her hips for pockets that didn’t exist. Her key, cash, and switchblade had been stuffed into her heeled boots, because no way would she be toting some tiny purse through this place. “Is she always this bad?”

Camilla tilted her head toward the door, and they headed to where the bodyguard waited at the entrance as she continued. “The woman goes in cycles. Bitchy to raging—right now we’re in the throes of raging bitch.”

“God, how do you deal with it?” Danny complained as she lifted her arms so the bodyguard could pat her down. A moment later, the burly guy nodded them into the club. She grabbed the thick steel door and yanked it open, the music blasting so loud it reverberated through her bones, just the way she liked.

“Experience, the lure of cold hard cash, and a lot of alcohol,” Camilla called as they wound their way past the open foyer and coat check, stopping to pay for their wrist bands. Bar joists ran the length of the raised ceiling, traveling the same direction they did toward the open doors of the club. Beams of light flashed in every direction, deep blues, purples, and yellows blinking to the rhythm of the music. There was a dance floor somewhere there—she assumed by the mass of bodies thrashing around under the pulsing lights separate from the folks crowding the backlit bars on either side.

Further away, a DJ stood behind his rig on stage, spinning while geometric shapes projected on the wall behind him. Danny stood still for a moment, soaking in the whole experience as Camilla cut through the crowds on a straight line to the bar. Even though she wanted to bolt to the dance floor and swing her hips to the rhythm until two in the morning, she’d dragged Camilla out in the first place—it’d be rude to ditch.

Danny bit back her sigh and tamed the adrenaline sparking to her fingertips as she followed Camilla’s path to the bar. She tapped her on the shoulder. “I owe you a drink for not leaving the new girl out to hang. What do you want?”

“Dry martini,” Camilla said, squeezing into the gap of space along the bar. Danny leaned in behind her as she tried to get the bartender’s attention. “You know,” Camilla glanced over, “I don’t require supervision. I’m happy sitting by the bar and people watching if you want to throw yourself in the middle of that sweaty mess.”

Danny restrained the urge to throw her arms around her in a hug. Most folks didn’t react well to surprise contact while getting to know one another. “Thanks for being a slice of sanity,” she said instead. “Moving to a new town can be a bitch.”

“Martini is sufficient thanks.” Camilla grinned, her crimson lips and glittering eyes giving Danny a major case of envy. The woman was catwalk gorgeous. Even though Danny had dolled up with smoky eyes, rose lipstick, and flat-ironed copper strands, she hated the ruddiness of her skin and how quick she burned and flushed. The bartender swaggered over, leaning in to get her order.

“Martini for this one,” she called out, jerking a finger in Camilla’s direction before slapping a bill on the counter. “Keep it.” She wasn’t feeling the need for a drink—not the way the urge burned through her to get out on the dance floor and move.

Danny stepped to the throng of moving bodies right as the DJ faded into a new song. This one started out with a slow beat that built and built into a crescendo that begged to hit an explosive refrain. She found the first gap closer to the dance floor and slipped in with ease as she bumped to the pulse of the music like the rest of the crowd. All around her, arms flew around, legs pounded the ground, and folks immersed themselves in the sound.

The air smelled like sweat and the sharp notes of Calvin Klein’s Obsession mixed with whisky and ale. Bright blues cascaded over her, and she shut her eyes, twisting to the rising beat as the song reached a crescendo. Around her, people threw their hands in the air and cheered when the refrain throbbed through the speakers. Like this, she didn’t feel so alone. Here, she could pretend at the end of the day she wasn’t returning home to an empty apartment and traveling from town to town like a circus.

A new song wove in, this one featuring more of a trance vibe, and she swung into the rhythm, catching glimpses of a chick grinding on a guy beside her and a wiry dude thrashing around to the music, arms flailing like he’d lose them. Her heart pumped, and drops of sweat traveled down her body as she danced with the rest of the crowd. The beat carried her away like a midnight drive, the reverberating waves of sound and the movement helping her unwind.

Her ankle began to buzz—the ringer on her phone.

Danny let out a low curse as she screeched to a dead halt and slipped through the seams of the crowd to exit the dance floor. She snagged her phone from her boot. Only one person could be calling her at this hour. Her heart already pumped in double time, but this skyrocketed her pulse. She lifted the phone to her ear as she made a beeline for the exit.

“Hey, it’s me,” Danny answered as she slipped through the front doors to the fragrant Charleston night, the saltwater woven through the cool spring breezes. “What’s going on?” She didn’t bother looking at the screen—her handler in Witness Protection was calling. She stepped away from the entrance to lean against the bricks like a couple of other folks who got the same idea, either on their phone or catching a quick smoke break.

“Kyle Peterson was sighted in Philadelphia,” Eve responded, the familiar voice something Danny always clutched onto. “We have removed your mother from the area and are transporting her to a different city.”

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